MOVIE REVIEW: Hit man becomes hit woman in 'Assignment'

This mindless exercise of a movie suffers from a multitude of problems, beginning with the fact that the premise is so laughably implausible that you can barely keep a straight face.

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledger

When I first saw Michelle Rodriguez it was as a female Rocky in the gritty, made-on-a-dime “Girlfight.” She was sensational – beautiful, strong and afraid of no one. I anticipated great things for her. But with the exception of her limited role in the “Fast and Furious” franchise and a bit part on TV’s “Lost,” her 17-year career has largely sputtered. She also earned the scarlet D, as in “difficult” to work with. But have things really gotten so desperate that she’s forced to chomp on chum like the ridiculous “(re)Assignment”?

In it, she plays a hitman unwittingly carved up into a hitwoman by a vengeful sex-change surgeon played by a robotic Sigourney Weaver. That’s it. That’s the movie. And it’s even duller than it sounds. Lucky for Rodriguez, she has another “Fast and Furious” demolition derby coming up next week to quickly wash the taste of “(re)Assignment” (aka “The Assignment”) out of our mouths. But what was she thinking when she signed up for such paltry pulp? Was she really convinced it would yield something profound about gender roles and sexual identity? If so, she fails on both counts.

In fact, Rodriguez (who is openly bisexual) and her semi-offensive movie have taken heavy fire from the LGBT community for its rampant insensitivity -- with good reason. But transphobia is the least of this mindless exercise’s multitude of problems, beginning with the fact that the premise is so laughably implausible that you can barely keep a straight face. It comes as little surprise that it was assembled by a couple of straight men in journalist Denis Hamill (brother of the N.Y. Post's Pete) and Walter Hill, who also directs. Hamill has said the script was originally conceived in 1978, and its creakiness shows in every clunky, clichéd line.

The storytelling is lackadaisical; little more than reams of expository dialogue -- drudgingly spit out by an extremely overqualified cast -- squeezed between endless scenes of macho posturing and overcooked shootouts in which just about everyone but our hero/heroine winds up full of holes. That includes Weaver’s Dr. Rachel Kay, a Shakespeare-quoting nut job who exacts revenge for her deadbeat brother’s murder with an exacto knife on the genitalia of Rodriguez’s hitman, Frank Kitchen. Yes! His name is Kitchen. Get it? The doctor puts the woman in the Kitchen. Ha ha! A solid filmmaker would thoughtfully explore how a man adjusts to becoming a woman, but Hill and Hamill are too salacious. They instead fulfill their typical male fantasy of producing a lipstick lesbian ready to jump into the sack with a comely nurse named Johnnie (a wasted Caitlin Gerard), who Frank just befriended before being kidnapped and operated on against his will. Give Rodriguez credit for looking legit as a man, thanks largely to a convincing fake beard and gravelly voice, but her performance is all physical.

When she awakes from the surgery in a San Francisco dive, she believably admires her/his new body, staring into a mirror, squeezing his new breasts like melons at the market. But that’s the film’s existential limit. The rest of the picture is just Kitchen vengefully hunting down Dr. Kay and her henchmen. To break things up, Hill (“48hrs”) cuts away to scenes of Dr. Kay being interviewed by a shrink played by Tony Shalhoub. It doesn’t take long to notice that their “talks” are just a cheap excuse to explain Kitchen’s story in flashback; in essence telling instead of showing how Dr. Kay ended up in a straight jacket. At least the film is short, but even at five minutes, this “Assignment” would be difficult to complete. THE ASSIGNMENT (R for graphic nudity, violence, sexuality, language and drug use.) Cast includes Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub and Caitlin Gerard. Grade: D